The first critical companion to the world of multi-Tony Award-winning American musical theatre practitioner Jason Robert Brown, hailed as “one of Broadway’s smartest and most sophisticated songwriters since Stephen Sondheim” (Philadelphia Inquirer).Rather than taking a show-by-show approach, Jason Robert Brown: A Critical Companion is structured according to topics of analysis, moving through three parts: Techniques, Identities, and Adaptation. All of Robert Brown's main musicals are covered, including the song cycle Songs For a New World; chamber musical The Last 5 Years; original musicals Parade and Mr Saturday Night through to adaptions such as The Bridges of Madison County and Urban Cowboy. The book fuses together narratological analysis with musicological analysis, considering the influences on Brown’s music and the way that words and music portray protagonists, narrative, relationships and identities across his works. The final chapter gives comparative analysis to garner a portrait of Jason Robert Brown as an artist.Published in Methuen Drama's Musical Theatre Critical Companion series this book combines traditional essays with primary research and practitioner interviews that offer a fresh look at key moments of musical theatre as a form.
